


for all the good times we never had

by kuro49



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Dick Grayson is Agent 37, Identity Porn, M/M, jaydick_flashfic: superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 11:11:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Dick Grayson knows he shouldn't do this, but this is the closest he has come to having a superpower of his own.Agent 37 doesn't use it for good.





	for all the good times we never had

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to crookedspoon and stevierarebarnes' cheering, and also Luthien Luinwe's tips on writing drunk. one of these days, i swear i will write something that doesn't just brush against the prompt in the loosest meaning of the word.

 

Jason is drunk.

He hasn’t been drunk in a very long time but finding a hard limit is difficult when there are no reasons at all to draw that defining line in the sand. He might not be such a good example for it but even he knows death is inescapable. One can only run for so long. The tides are always going to roll in for a clean new slate.

Jason thinks he might be slumping over his bar stool but he still hears the seat next to him being taken up when the legs of the stool is being dragged out across the floor. He doesn't startle but he doesn't expect this either when the man that sits down makes a predictable little cough to get his attention, waits for him to lift his head to him before asking.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Jason squints a little, focuses his bleary vision to find a man with a shaven head and a smile that sits a little bit crooked. There are no blue eyes or dark hair, and Jason finds himself thinking that grief is hardly about to work itself out of all five stages on its own. He tips his head a little, towards the hallway leading towards the washroom before saying.

"Might wanna skip that drink if we want me to get it up at all."

He smiles at the man, and stops thinking all together.

 

Dick is sober.

He is painfully sober, with the focus on the painful part of it when he is sitting on the other side of the bar watching a little brother he doesn’t get to call his. Not when his status in life is somewhere six feet under, funeral planned and done with, a body sealed within a coffin buried. In this moment alone, Jason looks like everything he wants to keep close.

Like one more bad decision atop many more, Dick knows he shouldn't do this. Shouldn't even entertain the idea of dragging Jason into the peripheral view of his Hypnos, let alone putting him right in the forefront of his settling gaze, framed in a bar that seems to be going hazy as it fades to just him on center stage.

Except, this is the closest he has come to having a superpower of his own, the implant allowing him to disappear in a crowd of just one more face that never comes to full focus. For all the good that Dick swears he will do, Agent 37 doesn't use it for good.

He still stands up when they do.

 

Jason hears the strides following behind.

Counting steps and shots and the fingers of the man's hand that is curling around his waist. He may be drunk but he isn’t entirely incapacitated by the alcohol in his blood.

“Oh, hey! You drive a black Lexus?”

The man holding him steady turns at that even if Jason makes no effort to follow, the man untangling himself from Jason as he does.

“Someone saw a guy breaking into one in the parking lot, you might want to make sure it isn't yours.”

Jason lifts a hand up in a half hearted goodbye, slumping a little against the wall, his head only turning then to follow the man who leaves to the one still standing, just strides away. Jason tilts his head at him, trading one nameless man for a faceless one when he asks in invitation, almost nonchalantly. “You wanna?”

“Uh.”

Jason doesn't wait, already turning to walk the rest of the way down the hall.

“It's not a hard question. He ain’t comin' back and I’m not about to stay." He doesn’t bother with squinting in the low light to catch a face or any kind of expression. Jason isn't about to be picky when he just wants a warm willing body to hold and be held before calling it a night. "What’s it gonna be, man?”

Jason has the men's washroom door opening on a creak before he glances back at the other again, dirty blonde hair with matching scruff, green eyes that are darting every way but always coming right back to him. Jason thinks his chances might be pretty good with this one too.

“Y-yeah," comes the final assent.

When the man bridges the distance, Jason laces their hands together like he isn’t a stranger and this isn't a dingy bar washroom where the ground is sticky with what could be anything. When he locks them into one of the narrow washroom stalls, Jason relaxes back against the door like this is what will fix all of his problems.

 

Dick focuses on every count of their breaths.

Holding it steady in his head as he tries not to come to the fully realized conclusion that Jason looks exactly his age, and that is only one of the many problems here.

“Y'don't owe me any answers.” Jason starts off, laying down the ground rules as he holds himself up by the stall door at his back, flush high on his cheeks as he pats at Dick’s chest like he is in any place to do the placating. “'cause I got no intention to ask you any questions, so you can relax already.”

His smile is a little bit loopy but his words are entirely coherent, and Dick might be spiraling right out of control when his eyes are going from the way Jason is licking his lips to the slip of skin showing between the waistband of his pants and the hem of his shirt that is riding up as Jason arches towards him.

Dick swallows hard, and the words come out smooth even if it is through gritted teeth because he is imagining all the ways that this could have been any other man standing in his place. “That works for me.”

Jason's mouth goes wane and soft, like he is thinking of a good memory. Dick knows, for a fact, that there aren't enough between them thanks to each of their own misgivings and even more of Bruce's. And this is just another one of those things that make regret bubble forth when Jason touches a hand to Dick's neck.

They stand as equals even if the scales are tipped when Jason is unknowing, leaning forward with a request that is unmistakable.

It is one that Dick gives into, far easier than he wishes he would when he is tasting whiskey in the heat of Jason's mouth. The two of them brought together with the press of just their lips, Jason's hand at the nape of Dick's neck a singular point of contact grounding him still.

 

Jason wants to keep the pressure of this man over himself forever.

He might be exaggerating when he has enough alcohol in him to make the world blur around the corners but it doesn't feel like it when a drunken hook up in the men's washroom can feel _this_ good. There are no nice ways for him to say this that isn't wrapped around a low groan all twisted out of proportions but he is reminded of Dick Grayson even when the hands on him are all heat instead of the cold reaches of death from beyond the grave.

"I just wan' say," he starts like every bad idea is finally catching up with him, and there are plenty here, "you look like 'im."

"Look like who?"

The man pulls back, just an inch and comes right back when Jason makes a noise at the loss.

"You aren't him," Jason continues on a murmur, insisting on the absolute truth, "you can't _be_ him."

The blonde of the man's hair looks brown in the light, his eyes are green going dark, looking almost black. He is the wrong build, the wrong height, the wrong everything, and he might be smiling but his mouth is pressing over Jason's again and Jason opens up wide for the next kiss he gets. Mourning hurts somewhere inside of his chest, and the alcohol keeps it under some kind of wraps. He doesn't need any of this unraveling.

He bargains one sensation for another, hoping he gets back something that isn't all pain.

 

Dick knows for a fact that it isn't true, that none of what Jason says can be taken as the truth.

The firm belief is there, that there are no other absolutes than the one he's created. Hypnos makes sure of it. He looks just about the opposite of Richard John Grayson. It is the only reason why he would retrace Jason's steps in a city he shouldn't be in to find him in this state. Or so Dick keeps promising himself.

“You look like 'im but you aren’t," Jason keeps going, his thoughts on a one track runaway loop, "'cause he's dead and there," he takes a breath here, tearing himself back from a misaligned kiss to continue, "and, there's no coming back from that.”

Jason whispers that last part like it is a secret, and Dick wants to keep prying until Jason cracks, until he gives up every last thing he remembers of his own death if just to understand a fraction of the pain Jason went through at fifteen. But Dick is nether that kind nor cruel. Instead, he tells himself that he doesn't know why he does any of this except maybe to simply to hear it from Jason directly.

"Who did?" Dick asks, this time softer, swipes a thumb at Jason's bottom lip to have him suck in the digit until there is the edge of teeth.

There is little to no point to insist on digging at their own wounds like this, but here he is giving them a brand new one like there aren't enough.

“You did.” Jason mutters out, not a glimmer of recognition in his half-lidded eyes, all green and blue and out of focus but on the stumble of words and his hands working to get Dick's belt opened. "But hey," he unhooks the belt from the buckle, "I don't wanna talk about this an'more," undoes the button and drags the zipper down all the way, "can we just...?"

He trails off, and Dick opens his mouth to do what exactly? He hasn't figured that far along a plan when it is undoing itself at his feet with Jason sliding down to his knees, taking his silence for permission.

Dick feels neither super nor like a hero, in fact, he feels quite like the opposite of that even if it feels all too good when Jason looks up at him, his mouth still wane when he wets his lips to sloppily swallow him down. When his fingers tangle themselves into Jason's hair and Jason leans into it without pulling up once, Dick tells himself that he is giving Jason everything he is capable of in this moment alone.

Dick tells himself plenty of things.

 

Jason is thinking. On a memory of last night. Of fragments of a swirl for a face. Of a man with hands that are gentle even when he wanted it mean and rough all around the edges. He is thinking on a memory. Of the ever changing details that he grasps at like water through his fingers and the pounding in his head.

He is thinking, thinking, and thinking when he realizes he is thinking of none.

 


End file.
